


Her

by Carolinathousandcities



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 15:19:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13437582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carolinathousandcities/pseuds/Carolinathousandcities
Summary: You’d jogged down a hallway today. Heels clacking harshly on disinfected cement. You hadn’t even heard them, your brain torn halfway between get to her, god get to her, and keep it together, there has been a mistake.





	Her

**Author's Note:**

> So I sat down to write a prison chapter. Only this came out instead.   
> It sticks to canon until...it doesn't. Just a bit of a muck around!!  
> Enjoyyyy x

You’d jogged down a hallway today. Heels clacking harshly on disinfected cement. You hadn’t even heard them, your brain torn halfway between _get to her, god get to her_ , and _keep it together, there has been a mistake._

It had taken you exactly four minutes to get to admissions from your office. And it had been exactly five since Vera rang your line.

_Franky’s coming in._

You’d been confused because she hadn’t said she was going to visit anyone today. But maybe she needed it. You’d thought of the way she had seemed so numb the other night, with the dishwasher.

_Bridget…she’s been charged with murder._

What?

For a millisecond, you’d wanted to laugh, happy with the way Vera’s tongue seemed to be loosening, that she felt comfortable enough to joke around you.

And then you’d caught the words _Mike Pennisi_ and noted that Vera was pausing a lot. Something she does when she is nervous or unsure.

It hadn’t been a joke.

But it had to be a mistake.

You’d placed the phone down without saying a word. Stood calmly, and walked out of your office like you were going to get a coffee. As things became clearer and clearer in your mind, and kernels of panic started to pop in your chest like popcorn, your steps had quickened. You’d cursed the amount of time your swipe card took to open doors.

By the time you’d made it to the hallway that housed admissions you’d been jogging. Right up to the window, and even from the moment you stuck your head around the corner you’d been convinced that you weren’t going to see her.

You weren’t going to see the woman who’d slept with her arm slung across your waist last night.

You weren’t going to see the woman who’d made your coffee _that_ morning. Who’d kissed you goodbye as she walked out the door. Who you’d had to chase down before she pulled out of the drive, smiling and holding some papers she’d forgotten.

_That_ woman, in prison was incomprehensible.

But there she was. Mouth sewn into a firm line, shoulders sloping downwards.

She’d looked up.

Your face had fallen.

And you hadn’t even had time to change your expression or read hers before Vera’s fingers had been digging into your arm pulling you away.

Were you that predictable? Enough for Vera to know that you would run straight to her?

Dimly, it had occurred to you that you didn’t give a _fuck_ if you were.

You were not going to abandon her.

No.

So you’d made calls. Hired the best, decided in a split second that you would take the fall if a connection was discovered as long as it got. Her. Out. Waved expenses away with a flick of your wrist because you had the money and you weren’t going to take the chance, not on her.  

And you’d seen her.

In a stairwell.

Where you couldn’t even touch her, and some of your confusion had been cleared up because, _god Franky_ , she’d seen him more than once.

And that admission had made you want to put your head in your hands. But you had to be made of steel. She had to be strong and so you would be too.

But didn’t she know? Didn’t she fucking know that even if someone had figured out that you were together. Even if there were photos of you and her at home…you would’ve figured it out?

You would’ve handled it.

You know she was trying to protect you. You love her harder for it. But it is also the reason that people are saying murder in conjunction with her name instead of just the possibility of scandal.

You’d held her today too.

Just for a second.

A second that lasted forever. A second that lasted nowhere near long enough.

Felt her back through her flannel, pressed your hands in tight. Felt her face against yours and _god_ please don’t let that be the last time you feel it. Had her lips on yours for just a _moment_ and known that you would give it all up to get her back.

And calmly resolute you’d told her to hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Because you believed her. She hadn’t done it. And there was no way you were going to let it end here.

And now you are home.

In an empty house.

With a glass of wine and no her and very acutely aware that memories are a poor substitute.

Your eyes are dry.

* * *

 

The night you start to drink. **Really** drink. Is not the night after she has accused you of doubting her; a bite in her tone and coated in desperation and lashing out at anything that comes near her. _See me._

It is not even the night after you had _refused_ to let her end it. After she had torn at your clothes and implied things about your relationship that had made you curl in on yourself in the bed you’d once shared **with** her. After you’d pointed your finger in her face and said _don’t_ _you do this_ , because you’d _known_ her exact thought process.

It is neither of those nights or the ones after.

It is the night after the day that she stands in your office, whispers that she is going to _wither up and die_ , shoves her hands in her pockets and chokes out that she just wants to hold you.

She just wants to hold you.

That is the night you pour a glass so full that a little spills out on the way to your mouth. You pretend that it is not because your hands are shaking.

You finish a bottle.

Start another. Wake up on the couch in the morning with a half empty glass on the coffee table, a pounding head and the shakes.

And for a moment. All you can think about is how awful you feel. Revulsion slides down your throat a little that _this_ hell is **almost** a reprieve from the reality and morning realisation that she is not pressed into your back.

And you repeat this.

Some nights it is half a bottle. Some nights it is more than one.

Every morning your head pounds and your teeth _ache_ like you’ve been sleeping with your jaw clenched.

You are well aware that you are making it worse.

You do not know what else to do.

But you’re covering it well. It is not obvious yet.

And you stumble through work with a mantra repeating itself in your head.

_Go to her._

_Go to her._

_God_.

And you are so mad. So mad. So devastated. So everything. And your fingernails press into your palms every time you cross paths with her in the corridors.

Because that is the hardest bit.

She is right in front of your face. You can see her breaking. See the desperation etched into her when she lets her cover slip.

And you want to say _fuck the **world**_ **.** Fuck everything she has done, and go to her cell and hold her and be held by her.

But you can’t.

It wouldn’t fix anything.

Wouldn’t set her free.

Only.

It _might_ fix you. Just a tiny bit.

* * *

 

You have to leave.

It is not _her_ you have to leave exactly. Rather, the entire situation.

Because you don’t recognise your own reflection. Because you can’t remember the last time your hands weren’t shaking. Because you are trying to _feel_ it but you just can’t do it while she is right there in front of you.

Because you would probably still go to her if she asked.

Because you want her to ask.

Because you are chipping away at pieces of yourself to get through this and if you do that for much longer you will be nothing but a husk.

So you resign. And Vera purses her lips, looks at the floor a moment, then nods quickly, and smiles softly.

Says, ‘Well, I’ll miss you. But maybe…perhaps it’s for the best.’

And then as you are walking away she says, ‘Call me, Bridget. If it gets-’

And you just nod quickly, smile a watery smile and go to pack up your office numbly.

When you are almost done you tell Linda Miles to send her in. Because you would not leave without saying goodbye. Never.

But you have a feeling that if you are not completely packed by the time she gets here then your will to leave might lessen. Or worse, she would stay and watch you pack up and leave her one item at a time.

She walks in and she says _no_ and that she’s _not fucking Allie._ And oh darling. Doesn’t she see that this is not about blonde beanstalks?

This is about you. And her. And you and her. And you have to **go**.

But you can’t let her think…

Your chest is already cleaved in two, and so you strip it down, pull open your ribs a little more with your bare hands and let her see. Let her truly see what this has done to you for the first time in this whole mess.

_I can’t deal with this, I can’t be here and not be with you anymore. All I think day and night is you. I look in the mirror, I can’t even see myself._  

And she holds your face like she might be able to hold you together this way. Like she might be able to map your face out with her palms and fingers.

And she begs you to stay. Says she will fix it. That you can start again.

She says that she loves you.

And you love her too.

God you love her so hard that you see her on the insides of you eyelids.

And that is why you have to go.

You don’t let yourself look back when you hear her voice break and hear her say _we’re not done._

You don’t drop the box you are holding and grip the back of her neck and whisper _in any other universe, in any other universe, baby, we would’ve made it_ , the way your throat screams to.

You shut the door.

And you walk to your car. And this time you do hear the way your boots clack against concrete. They sound final.

But you’ve forgotten your laptop charger underneath your fucking desk. And who cares.

You pull open your car door.

You can just buy another bloody laptop cord.

But.

You owe some women reports. Want to get it done and put this place behind you, so you close your eyes for a beat and take a deep breath and walk back in.

She would have left your office by now anyway. Be back on work detail. And you will be in and out.

You don’t notice the curious look you receive from the guard on the front desk.

Let your feet carry you quickly, efficiently and on autopilot right back to your office.

She’d closed the door behind her.

You push it open.

And God.

She’s still here.

Standing in the exact same spot you’d left her in fifteen minutes ago.

She turns her head away from you, brushes roughly at the tears making their way quietly down her cheeks.

‘Smiles,’ she breaks a little, tries again, ‘Smiles thought we were having a session I guess.’

With tears running down her face she is trying to explain why she is still here.

You avert your eyes, step to the side and grab the laptop cord from under your desk. You hadn’t expected her to still be here. Had not expected to have to clench your biceps to physically stop your own arms from reaching for her.

She hasn’t taken her eyes off you and once the cord is in your fingers you meet her gaze.

Mistake.

Because her eyes will always be your undoing.

Three steps across the carpet and your arms are sliding underneath hers and pulling her into you like you might be able to physically absorb her if you try hard enough. She is doing the same. One hand in your hair, the other arm wrapped bodily around your waist.

Pressed against your front you can feel her shake, trying to suppress her tears.

You pull back after a moment. Want to wipe underneath her eyes with your thumbs. But her mouth is on yours, so hungry and desperate that you know, without a doubt, she is trying to memorise the taste of you.

Eventually she pulls away. But you know that if you tilt your chin up even a little, she will come back, mouth on yours in a heartbeat.

You close your eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers.

You shake your head. It is not about that.

A clean break you’d said. And then you’d come back and made it that much harder.

But maybe she needed this. And so you will deal with the hurt it does to you.

You look up, put a hand on her cheek.

She nods quickly, mouth opening to say something, _you know_ , but she closes it quickly and shakes her head.

What is there left to say?

I love you?

It is true but it is too cruel to repeat.

So you step backwards out of her arms and you leave. Because one more moment and you never would.

* * *

 

You’d gotten a call not long after you’d resigned.

‘Bridget. I know you- but I just have to check, Franky, she tried to escape today, through the garden project.’

_Oh, baby_.

‘She wasn’t- wasn’t uh, successful but I need to ask. Did you know about it?’

You’d reassured Vera that you hadn’t. Refrained from asking about her by clamping your mouth closed.

That had been two years ago.

And you’ve worked through your own grief, mostly.

Drowned in it, felt it, waded to the shallow end of it, because grief is not a continuum. It is not fixed.

Most days, you can conjure up a smile when you think of her. Others you are right back to drowning. This is happening less and less often though.

You visit her in your head.

Absorb everything she is…was.

Franky Doyle laughing on Saint Kilda beach in front of a fiery sunset.

Franky Doyle kissing your neck in a way that makes you want to explode before she’s hardly touched you. 

And then you leave her there.

In your head.

And **that** is the most tragic part.

Because you think that maybe, your head is the only place she _truly_ exists outside of that prison. And she was too _much_. Too vibrant, too smart, too angry, too hopeful, too…everything, for your head to be the only place she exists.

But it is.

Because the rest of the world will have her down as a murderer and a criminal.

One head will have her down as the angry daughter who deserved far more. Who he wished he got to know better.

One head will have her down as the sister she _never_ got to know.

And that is it.

Your head is the only one in which she is everything.

Laughing, sighing, furious, gesturing, exhausted, elated, defensive, open, quiet, loud, loving.

Your head is the only place she exists _free_.

And you will leave her there.

* * *

 

Your doorbell rings late on a Saturday afternoon as you’re getting ready to go out.

You have…well, a date. Because it’s been _two years_ and you’d needed to try. And this woman had asked you. And she was interesting in a _different_ way. And even though you’d taken two weeks to call her back after your first drink she’d been more than understanding.

_This woman_. You roll your eyes at yourself as you walk down the hallway. Michelle.

 Michelle is not the woman on your front doorstep.

But Franky Doyle _is_.

You wonder if perhaps, you have had one too many glasses while you get ready.

But as you stand in your doorway, staring, she shrugs a little, looks hopeful and devastated all at once, puffs her cheeks and breathes out and says, ‘I wasn’t sure where else to go.’

And as soon as she has spoken you know you aren’t seeing things. But your voice has caught in the back of your throat. You shake your head slowly in disbelief and all you can do, absolutely all you can manage, is to push the door open wider and breathe, ‘Come in.’

When she smiles the tiniest, heartbroken smile, you realise that she had not been sure what reception she would get.

You would like to reach out and touch her when she slides past you. Breathe her in.

But it’s been _two years_ and for the first time in your life you genuinely don’t know the protocol.

She takes a seat on your kitchen stools and explains in very short and basic terms, that new evidence had come to light. The case quietly reopened long after she’d been sentenced to life and finally, she’d been set free.

And here she is.

On the other side of the bench, hands planted firmly on marble to ground you, you’d shaken your head slowly in disbelief. Wanted to ask why she hadn’t called you. But it didn’t matter really. She was here.

‘I took- I took all your stuff to your Dad’s.’

She ducks her head, looks at her fingers for a moment before nodding and looking back up as she stands, ‘All good, I can-’

You are breathing the words out before you know it, ‘Stay.’

She looks a little pained, like she doesn’t want to let herself hope.

‘Franky, only if you want to, I-’

‘Okay.’

She’s smiling but looking at the ground again and you know it’s because maybe she is not quite ready to let you see her cry. Two years has to have changed her. She is trying start a life she never thought she’d get.

She speaks again while you’re studying her, ‘I smell like prison-’

You nod gently, ‘Shower’s all yours. I’ll find some shorts, something, for after.’

She takes one more look at you, like she thinks, when she comes out of the shower, you won’t be here.

You will never be anywhere else.

You hear the shower start as you rummage in your drawers for an oversized t-shirt and some shorts. Fold them gently and can’t quite believe they will be touching _her_ skin.

You are jealous of your t-shirt.

You sit them gently just outside the door, try to move quickly so you don’t stand and listen, but as you straighten you notice the door is open a crack and you can hear a hacking, heart-wrenching sob coming from within.

It takes you less than one second to think through the following.

_Fuck polite. She needs you. You will leave if she asks. You will **damned** if you stand here while she is hurting._

So you push open the bathroom door and she is underneath a heavy stream of water fully clothed. Her back is to you but even now you can see that she is leaning against the tiles, shaking.

‘Franky,’ your voice cracks as you move across your bathroom and step into the shower recess. She turns quickly, dark eye makeup running down her face, hair plastered to her scalp.

And then she nods, just once quickly, and you are under the water too. Holding her up.

Your clothes get soaked and your face is pointed into the stream so your eyes are screwed shut as water pounds down around you. You can only feel her. Pressed up against you, shaking.

‘I thought I’d never-’

You nod.

It is miraculous and terrifying and everything you wouldn’t allow yourself to hope for.

_Her._

You have a long way to go.

But she does not only exist in your head now.    


End file.
